Abstract
Essentialism is an approach assuming that people and things have natural and essential common characteristics which are inherent, innate and unchanging. Thus, it is regarded as an educational philosophy. However, having the common essence and the same essentials at the same levels can lead to undesired practices in real life too. Even nouns and pronouns used in daily communication reflect some connotations of a philosophy as a system of beliefs about reality based on how we perceive ourselves and others in terms of our existence. How we address ourselves and others also represents our point of view related to the relationship and interaction between us and others. Essentialism as a philosophy has impact on our differentiation or unification ways while addressing. In this sense, the pronoun we represents a kind of unification while the pronoun you refers to a kind of discrimination or differentiation, which can be referred as a kind of taxonomy used in communication. This paper seeks to present how essentialism is used as the basis of our daily communication and its role in our discriminating and unifying efforts in social, cultural and scientific domains. Essentialism in education asserts that common and essential ideas and skills belonging to a certain culture should be taught to all citizens at the same level at especially primary school level. To do this, the teacher’s authority in the classroom is emphasised and the subject matter is the centre of the curriculum. The essence or the centre of education is the core curriculum which is a combination of hard work and rigorous effort. The unification role of essentialism is represented in the core curriculum that aims to transfer the essential knowledge and skills needed for the equal and well-balanced citizens. The discrimination function of essentialism comes out in politics, natural sciences in the form of taxonomy.
Keywords: discrimination, essence, taxonomy, unification